Assessment of Waste Heat Recovery From a Heavy-Duty Truck Engine by Means of an ORC Turbogenerator

Abstract

This paper documents a feasibility study on a waste heat recovery system for heavy-duty truck engines based on an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) turbogenerator. The study addresses many of the challenges of a mobile automotive application: The system must be simple, efficient, relatively small, lightweight, and the working fluid must satisfy the many technical, environmental, and toxicological requirements typical of the automotive sector. The choice of a siloxane as the working fluid allows for the preliminary design of an efficient radial turbine, whose shaft can be lubricated by the working fluid itself. The system's heat exchangers, though more voluminous than desirable, are within acceptable limits. The simulated ORC system would add approximately 9.6 kW at the design point, corresponding to a truck engine power output of 150 kW at 1500 rpm. Future work will be devoted to further system and components optimization by means of simulations, to the study of dynamic operation and control, and will be followed by the design and construction of a laboratory test bench for mini-ORC systems and components.